Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applications to have beavers introduced under the wildlife licensing scheme, CL50, have been (a) made and (b) accepted.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Class Licence CL50 allows for re-release of captured or rescued beavers back into existing wild-living beaver populations, and is intended to enable conflict management, rescue for welfare reasons, and research. CL50 cannot be used for introduction of beavers to river catchments where they do not already exist. There have been 12 applications made to Natural England to re-release beavers under CL50, all into the same river catchments that they were captured or rescued from. Of these, 9 were granted, and 3 were withdrawn or not granted.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of his Department's spending on agricultural payment schemes in the financial year 2022-2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In September 2023, the Farming and Countryside Programme (FCP) published an annual report for financial year 2022 to 2023. This set out that the FCP spent a total of £2.230 billion on our existing, and new farming schemes.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what is the the salary of the River Champion for the Wye.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The River Wye Champion role will not be remunerated in line with the expectation that Direct Ministerial Appointments are typically unpaid. However, appointees are entitled to claim reasonable expenses in accordance with the Civil Service expenses policy. This means that while the position itself does not offer financial compensation, reimbursement for expenses incurred during the course of duty may be claimed in accordance with the Civil Service expenses policy.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to publish the list of successful new bathing water sites following the consultation which closed on 10 March.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra plans to publish the outcomes of the consultation on the designation of 27 proposed bathing sites by the start of the 2024 bathing season, which begins on 15 May.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times the Marine Management Organisation has held a public inquiry to consider an application for a marine licence; and what the reason was in each case.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Once, since the establishment of the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) in 2010. On 26 May 2011, the MMO called a public inquiry to be held for two marine licences related to the construction and dredging associated with a temporary jetty to support the development of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. The inquiry focussed on several matters including procedural matters related to marine licences and development consent orders, removal of the jetty, and environmental matters.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Environment Agency staff have left that organisation in each year since 2015.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The number of Environment Agency staff who left and joined the organisation in each financial year since 2016/17 is detailed below. We are unable to provide data from 2014/15 or 2015/16 as this information is not readily available.
| (April 2016 - March 2017) | (April 2017 - March 2018) | (April 2018 - March 2019) | (April 2019 - March 2020) | (April 2020 - March 2021) | (April 2021 - March 2022) | (April 2022 - March 2023) | (April 2023 - Jan 2024) |
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Number of EA staff who left the organisation within a financial year | 999 | 1988 | 836 | 966 | 754 | 1149 | 1315 | 829 |
Number of EA staff who joined the organisation within a financial year | 977 | 912 | 888 | 1008 | 364 | 890 | 2297 | 1640 |
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an estimate of the number of homes affected by sewage rising into (a) gardens, (b) toilets and (c) sinks after heavy rains.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Discover Water, a water company performance data website which brings robust already-available company data from a range of sources together includes detail on sewer flooding incidents. In 2022-23; 47,176 areas of private land or gardens were flooded by sewage and 4,794 properties were internally flooded by sewage.
Sewer flooding may occur for a number of reasons, including a failure of the sewerage system; blockages; or when the sewerage system is overwhelmed when too much rainwater enters the sewers from surrounding roads, houses and land. Storm overflows stop sewage backing up into homes by releasing wastewater when the system is overwhelmed during periods of heavy rain. A growing population and ageing infrastructure, means these storm overflows are being pushed beyond their intended limits and that needs to change. As part of our Plan for Water, water companies are delivering the largest infrastructure programme in history - £60 billion of investment over 25 years. We continue to hold water companies to account and will not hesitate to act where there is evidence of wrongdoing.
Government recognises the importance of having a robust drainage system both now and for future demand. As per commitments in the Environmental Improvement Plan and the Plan for Water, Defra will legislate to require water companies in England to produce Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans (DWMPs). DWMPs set out how a water company intends to improve their drainage and wastewater systems over the next 25 years, accounting for factors including growing population and changing environmental circumstances. When producing DWMPs, water companies will be required to identify solutions in collaboration with other partners such as lead local flood authorities (LLFAs) and other flood risk management authorities.
Flooding from heavy rain and thunderstorms is known as surface water flooding. In England 3.4 million properties are at risk of such flooding. The responsibility for managing local flood risk, including from surface water, falls to LLFAs, in partnership with highways authorities and water companies. LLFAs are required to identify and agree local objectives for managing these local flood risks and to set them out in their statutory Local Flood Risk Management Strategy.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff were in the Environment Agency's legal services team in each year since 2015.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The data in relation to Environment Agency Legal Services full-time equivalent numbers is detailed below:
| Legal Services |
Mar-15 | 137.1 |
Mar-16 | 144.6 |
Mar-17 | 136.8 |
Mar-18 | 137.8 |
Mar-19 | 141.5 |
Mar-20 | 146.4 |
Mar-21 | 142.7 |
Mar-22 | 137.2 |
Mar-23 | 145.4 |
Jan-24 | 148.4 |
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish the upland farming Pathways to Success modelling analysis prepared between 1 March 2022 and 1 August 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The work referenced was not completed. However, we have provided information on the potential impact of our farming reforms. For example, the evidence compendium was most recently updated in September 2022 and the Agriculture in the UK Dashboard was published in November 2023. These set out the contribution of Direct Payments on farm incomes, including analysis by sector, location in England and type of land tenure.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which bathing waters have been de-designated in each region since 2015.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since 2015, the following bathing waters have been de-designated in the Environment Agency areas listed below:
Area | De-Designated bathing waters since 2015 |
Cumbria and Lancashire | 2 |
Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly | 3 |
East Anglia | 1 |
Solent and South Downs | 1 |
Wessex | 2 |
Yorkshire | 2 |
The names of these sites are: